I have a confession. I dont like Hanukkah. I have kept this a secret for lots and lots of years because the first time I mentioned it (just in casual conversation), I was accused of being antisemitic, which of course upset me terribly. Just thinking about it now makes me trembly and tearful. But last night I had nightmares, all night, about Hanukkah (seems silly, I know). To me, Hanukkah is similar to Memorial Day or Veterans Day, which seem to me to be simply celebrations of war, grounded in a wrong-headed belief that freedom has to be protected by violence. Anytime I think of war, I just feel real sad because, to me, war (any war, no matter how righteous) is really a sign of people failing to get along. It is a miserable and extreme failing of people to live in harmony with each other. But Hanukkah also celebrates the miracle of the oil. So heres what I feel about miracles: they are ordinary occurrences, completely ordinary. All that we need is, somehow, miraculously provided. Miracles happen all the time; its just that people fail to notice them (or they give themselves too much credit for the good in their lives). Miracles are easier to notice when we look back on our lives. Looking back, well, I think just about everyone is kind of amazed to still be alive, to have made it through all the trials and tribulations. The appropriate response to miracles is not righteousness; its gratitude. Righteousness sounds like such a lovely word, doesnt it? But it is inherently divisive; it inherently breeds war because when someone is right, someone else has to be wrong. Anyway, Hanukkah, to me, has always been at odds with the Jewish religions basic tenet of loving your neighbor as yourself. All this is not to say that I havent struggled with Christmas. Holidays in general seem to be troublesome. I think it is a good idea to step back from time to time and examine our relationships with them, to even question their validity in order to re-create (to re-imagine) them into something that serves us better as individuals and as a community (a world community). In Buddhism, everything is up for questioning, continual questioning, but not in a nay-saying way. Its not about being clever; its about wanting to know the truth regarding what is really helpful. And I think all this is kind of what John Lennons song is about. youtu.be/DVg2EJvvlF8
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 17:08:54 +0000